Are the Celtics playing above, below, or about on par with their talent

[Vermont Green]

The Celtics are 3-4, on pace to win 35 games.  I know it is too small a sample size but I am curious where people will come down on this.

[Donoghus]

Underachieving.

They're better than a team with a 35 win pace.

[jpotter33]

Underachieving.

They're better than a team with a 35 win pace.

Same. Our shooting has been pretty sub-par so far from where we should be, so I would definitely say we're underachieving as of now.

[Evantime34]

Playing at a representative level in terms of our point differential and strength of schedule. Basketball Reference has a stat called SRS where they combine point differential and strength of schedule. That has us as the 13th best team in the NBA.

So the record isn't representative but their performance in terms of SRS and (to a lesser extent) point differential is.

[Who]

Underachieving -- rotations have been a mess.

[TheFlex]

Strictly speaking on their record:  significantly below. I think they're a 45 win team. But they've played some really good talent, so I'd say just below. I think the Pacers are a playoff team. They have a superstar, some good secondary scorers, and a defense that's going to make it ugly so the game stays close. I'm mad we've lost twice to them, but it's not like losing to last year's Pacers.

[j804]

The competition in the east looks better we probably just miss the playoffs. I expected them to be a lot better not playing very well right now.

[Chief Macho]

about what it should.  they stink.  they were always going to stink despite the weird praise they seem to get year after year here.

[PhoSita]

Let's see ...

4 losses. 

They lost to the Spurs.  Better team. 

They lost to the Raptors.  Better team. 

They lost to the Pacers, twice.  They're on par with the Pacers, but the Pacers have superior talent, and the games were close.  So that's not surprising.

They beat the Sixers, a much worse team.

They beat the Bucks, a team that's about the same as them -- shallower but with better talent.

They blew out the Wizards, a team that's probably on a similar level as them right now, but with much better high end talent. 


Based on all that, I'd say it's been about where you'd expect.  If anything, blowing out the Wizards felt a little bit like overachieving, but that's balanced with losing twice to the Pacers.



Looking at the East, it's pretty much as I expected.  There is a lot of parity, aside from the Cavs, Hawks, and Bulls at the top end, and the Sixers and Nets at the lower end.

I think you could take the other 10 teams in the East and play the season 100 times and there would be a lot of variance in the standings.  Who makes the playoffs will come down to who gets hot and for how long.

[CelticGuardian]

There's little to no offense happening out there, IT4 is being a volume scorer, not really efficient. Sullinger is stepping up and I'm afraid we're going to need monster games from him and Olynyk the rest of the year, if we even want to sniff the playoffs. That or Smart starts to play like he's the second coming of Gary Payton.

[snively]

I expect the C's to near-sweep the non-Toronto division games, so about 12 wins there. Maintaining the same 43% win percentage against the rest of the league should get us to 42 wins total. That's underachieving a little.

Cleaning up the rotation should be good for a handful of extra wins against the likes of the Pacers to get us to our 45-47 win potential.